Hargreaves Lansdown topped the platform charts with £2.5bn net sales in the first quarter of 2021, even as AJ Bell and Fidelity record their best gross and net quarterly sales yet.
Fundscape’s latest platform report found Hargreaves Lansdown led the pack in terms of net sales across all channels, as well as seeing £4.7bn gross sales during Q1. It ended the quarter with £126bn assets, representing 45% year-on-year growth and 7.1% growth in the first quarter.
AJ Bell came in second in terms of net sales for the quarter with £1.8bn, and a total of £2.8bn gross sales, although flows were split almost equally between its D2C channel and its advised channel. AJ Bell’s assets reached £58bn, growing by 38% year-on-year.
Meanwhile, Aegon landed first place in gross sales with £10.1bn, remaining the largest player with £156bn assets, ahead of Hargreaves whose assets total £126bn. Aegon’s assets grew by 2.2% in the first quarter, and by 24.9% year-on-year.
Fidelity recorded its best gross and net sales, making it second and third in the tables respectively. It saw a boom in gross sales of £5.7bn, and net sales of £1.7bn. Its assets grew by 33.8% year-on-year, ending Q1 at £105.6bn.
Fundscape CEO Bella Caridade-Ferreira (pictured) said that the industry has been “sucking diesel since November last year”.
She said: “Over the course of the pandemic, investors played safe and stashed their cash. With the positive outlook and confidence in the economy returning, that money is now flooding into investments. It’s been a great start and it looks set to continue for the rest of the year.”
The report found that across platforms, assets grew moderately in Q1 by 4.2% but still pushed the platform industry over the £800bn mark. Year-on-year, assets have sky-rocketed by £197bn from Q1 2020 when industry assets nosedived on Covid news.
Gross and net sales surged to record highs of £39bn and £16bn in the first quarter which was more than double the net sales of the previous quarter.
The report said “pent-up demand” was huge as “investors had built up a wall of money while waiting for a clearer outlook on Brexit, the pandemic and the US elections”.
It added that timing may have been in the industry’s favour as the vaccination news came just before the start of the Isa season when investors were keen to profit from soaring stock markets.
Adviser platforms also had a record-breaking quarter with gross sales of £21bn and net sales of £11bn.
Standard Life dominated gross sales with £2.3bn, a rise of around £650m from the previous quarter.
However, Transact continued to win first prize for net sales with £1.5bn, although Aviva was snapping at its heels with £1.45bn.
